Global Issues

Saudi Arabia

• Destination country for men and women subjected to forced labor and to a much lesser extent, forced prostitution.

• Women, primarily from Asian and African countries, believed to have been forced into prostitution in Saudi Arabia.

• Some Saudi men used legally contracted “temporary marriages” in countries such as Egypt, India, Mauritania, Yemen, and Indonesia as a means by which to sexually exploit young girls and women overseas.

• Rape and other sexual abuses reportedly widespread in both men’s and women’s detention centers and prisons.

• Government views marital relations between spouses as contractual and does not recognize spousal rape.

• By law, female rape victims are at fault for illegal “mixing of genders” and punished along with the perpetrator.

• No laws criminalizing violence against women.

• Discrimination against women a significant problem.

Advocacy:

• No shelter or services are available to victims of sex trafficking.

Sources: U.S. Department of State 2010 Human Rights Report, U.S. Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report 2011